Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, October 2, 2010

I am not quite sure whether I am very proud of or sorely disappointed in the potential voters of West Michigan. It seems we will be voting for governor in less than a month and the disinterest is palpable. That is, the air is thick with not caring. Apathy is skyrocketing?… As you can see, I’m having some difficulty putting it into words. But the feeling I get is that it is very cool the governor’s race has not (yet) turned into a mudslinging sideshow of partisan bickering. And yet, it might be nice if voters had some idea of who in fact was running. (Point of information: Rick Snyder is the Republican candidate; Virg Bernero is the Democrat.) But, hey — the truth is, we’ve been pretty dazzled by ArtPrize around here, and if that’s the big distraction, the governor thing can wait.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 25, 2010

The highly abridged back story is this: Bob Israels, a longtime West Michigan furniture store owner and entrepreneur, got caught in the credit crunch. Back in 2008, Israels borrowed a boatload of money to renovate the former Roger’s Department Store in Wyoming to be the new home of Klingman’s, a century old name for high quality furniture retail. The investment was stunning — the store, the building, the surrounding grounds were all top class, and a beacon for commercial development. 

Unfortunately, the timing could not have been worse. The Great Recession reached even into the ranks of Klingman’s customers — the upper and upper-middle class. Israels attempted to work with the banks for some flexibility with his loans. In years past, banks were glad to work with business people with high integrity and proven records. But the mid-size banks that Israels borrowed from were hurting for cash, too. Maybe they tried to work with him, I don’t know. But they ended up calling in the loans. Now Israels is liquidating Klingman’s.

So to review: Wall Street throws a party, sucks all the money out of the system, takes money from the government and keeps it, reports tidy profits as actual businesses in the hinterlands of America suffocate from lack of capital, and then attempts to bolster consumer confidence by declaring the recession over. That about right?…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 18, 2010

Many years ago my friend Mert had an installation at an art gallery in Detroit. An installation is a room or area that is set up with several works of art and usually has some sort of central theme. That’s the basic idea, anyway. There are variations and I’m sure an installation could be created outside of that definition (a minimalist might, for example, paint an empty room white and name it “untitled”), but for the purpose of this story, that’s what an installation is.
 
The gallery had three rooms for installations in the basement. You’d walk down one flight of stairs, go from one room to another, and go back up another flight of stairs. (That’s the right term, isn’t it? Flight of stairs? Looks weird when you see it written twice.) Mert had the first room. I can’t remember the name of his exhibit (perhaps he will chime in here and let us know), but it was a series of painted cutouts — some six foot tall on the floor, some hanging from the ceiling — and it was about the experience of driving through the Detroit Metro area. I actually wrote a review of it and submitted it to a local art magazine (never printed, I wasn’t part of the local art club). But that was like 427 computers ago. I probably have a backup of it on a SyQuest cartridge or a floppy disk the size of notebook paper. I’m not going to look for it.

Anyway, Mert’s artwork was bright and colorful and edgy and in your face. There was nothing esoteric about it. You really didn’t have to guess at the point he was trying to make. If, say, a penis was required — BAM! — there was a big ol’ cartoony penis. No veiled allusions. The next two exhibits, however, were just dripping with pretentious symbolism. The one after Mert’s was titled, “Le Petit Mort.” It was a dense awful arrangement of various shades of black drapes and God-only-knows what because you could barely see anything. I’m embarrassed to say that I actually knew what the title meant — in French it’s literally “the little death,” but it’s a metaphor for orgasm. (You live in a house with a guy from France for a year in college, you pick up important stuff like that.) The installation after that was at least technically a little bit impressive — there were ponds with fish, lots of shiny things like ruby slippers, but beyond the Wizard of Oz references, incomprehensible.

So, yeah, as you can guess, I didn’t particularly care for the other two installations. That’s was fine. It was art, and others apparently found it worthwhile, so good for them, and I was glad they had the opportunity to express themselves. The thing that bothered me is how badly the other artists (that is, real artistes) treated Mert. Shunned him, basically. Treated him as a lesser person who, to paraphrase my cartoon, could not possibly understand the greatness of their art. So last week when my editor sent me a link to a Wall Street Journal article on ArtPrize and a few real artistes opined, in effect, “Ewww, Grand Rapids.” And when several real artistes complained last year about ArtPrize winners being largely a function of location and popularity. And when real artistes begrudge others earned money. I draw a cartoon.

Hey, if you want to see some of Mert’s current illustration & cartoon art, click here. And if you don’t know anything about ArtPrize, click here (and make a point of visiting downtown GR in the next couple of weeks).

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 11, 2010

Time to move on, Michigan. It’s time to move on….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 4, 2010

Growing up in South Carolina, tobacco use was not so much encouraged as it was celebrated. The stuff grows like, well, like weeds, so it just made good sense to support it. The fact that it is insanely addictive certainly helped. You were, for all intents and purposes, handed a pack of smokes when you entered the state. I remember the coaches of my brother’s baseball team sharing a chunk of their Red Man chew with an eight year-old kid who simply asked for it. Yep. I am deeply thankful that I was never hooked.
 
I think about this occasionally when I see others who were in fact hooked — huddled in their designated smoker areas, exposed to the elements, and hopefully downwind. There but for the grace of… well, I don’t pretend to know God’s intentions for such things. But unless he’s from South Carolina, I’m guessing he’d prefer I didn’t smoke.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, August 28, 2010

First, to explain the topics covered:

There was a recent staging of a mixed martial art (MMA) or “cage fight” event here in Grand Rapids, and apparently it was for amateur fighters. And whereas there are regulations and certain safety rules for professional events (like having a doctor on hand), there are none for amateurs. I think that was it. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know exactly what the story is here. When I see MMA, my tendency is to look the other way. Professional, amateur, whatever — it’s all sort of violence porn to me. It hits so high on my “that’s really stupid” scale, that I cannot generate the energy to learn more.

You may or may not be aware that this summer Michigan had its own oil spill disaster. A pipeline burst and spilled an enormous amount of oil (not BP enormous, but still quite substantial) into the Kalamazoo River. I’m surprised I didn’t cover this earlier, but with one cartoon a week you can only get to so many topics (even doubling up like I did with this one). Anyway, this story led the Grand Rapids Press to do what good journalists do and investigate further. (I’ll give you a moment now to put down your web browser and go buy a dang subscription!) The Press found there are lots and lots of pipelines that transverse Michigan carrying oil, gasoline, natural gas, chemicals, and other toxic nasties — what sort of plans are in place to monitor and maintain these? Turns out, not a lot.

And now for a full disclosure: Credit for the live grenades and minefield line in the third panel should go to Garry Trudeau. One of his very early Doonesbury cartoons (and one of the first that I read) involved his character BD joining the Army to go fight in Vietnam. Some officers were testing new recruits and requested a volunteer to go retrieve a live hand grenade for a minefield — BD races forward enthusiastically screaming, “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” Obviously it stuck with me, and I ended up paraphrasing it. Of course I know I’m likely the only person in the world (other than Trudeau) who could detect my “sampling,” but telling you makes me feel a little less skeevy. Hmmm… maybe I can relate to MMA promoters….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, August 21, 2010

One time, back in my teenage years, I was riding in a car around Flint with friends. I don’t remember exactly what we were doing. Typically a car full of us meant we were heading someplace to play baseball or football. Or if it was evening, we were looking for an empty but lighted parking lot to throw a Frisbee. (I think it was being the proper mix of generally good kids and generally without money that kept us out of trouble.)

In any case, we were heading west on I-69 and we wanted to get to Bristol Road. I said, “That’s impossible. Both I-69 and Bristol Road go east/west. We’ll have to turn around and go back to I-75.” My friend Dominic said, “No, there’s actually an exit off I-69 for Bristol Road.” I said something back to Dominic, likely questioning both his intelligence and his parental heritage. But Dominic insisted, “I’ve seen it. We use it when we go to the mall.” Again I made disparaging remarks. It made no sense to me. Two parallel lines cannot intersect. It was simple geometry. I bet money. Dominic accepted and — lo and behold — minutes later we came upon the Bristol Road exit. (I-69 does not, in fact, travel perfectly east/west in the Flint area.) I was dumbfounded — reality had totally trumped my ideology. (Dominic let me weasel out of the bet — because he was a good kid and also because he knew I didn’t actually have any money.)

It was a good lesson that I still remember today: It’s fine to carry a general philosophy of how things work, but it’s not a good idea to let ideology blind you to reality. So it goes with public education in Michigan. Last week the Grand Rapids Press ran an extended series on the relative merits of school consolidation. The realities of the situation (dwindling tax dollars but an urgent need for better educated graduates) are smacking around traditionally held views to the point where liberal and conservative ideologies seem to be crossing. To me, that’s a positive sign. It’s time for Michigan to accept that fact that there’s a Bristol Road exit off I-69 and go from there.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, August 14, 2010

One of my favorite water balloon fight techniques (and I believe one of the most effective) is to first lob a balloon at the soakees. (It’s important to throw it high enough so the impact is certain to have the balloon burst.) As the soakees look upward to track the flight, the soaker burns another balloon low and hard, so the soakees either get popped by the low balloon or dodge the low balloon at the risk of the high one bursting on their noggins. Summer fun.

I am not so thrilled, however, with this technique being used on me. And as our family has been following the slow, arching, oncoming costs of sending our first child to college, it seems that our health insurance company has been aiming low — yet another annual increase of 11% come September. Summer not so much fun.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, August 7, 2010

Sometimes I feel like I come across as a know-it-all in my cartoons (this blog, too). For the record, I am keenly aware of the vastness of what I don’t know. I am also aware that what may seem to be self-assurance is often simplification for the sake of a better comic. So I want to make clear that what I say in a cartoon is not necessarily what I feel to be the final word. I’d rather provoke than preach.

This week for example I chose to comment on the recent primary elections here in Michigan and how the immigration control became something of a hot topic. The one strong feeling I had was the oddity of it being a hot topic — Michigan isn’t exactly attracting large numbers of immigrants these days, legal or illegal. A lot of seasonal workers come to Michigan to pick fruit, particularly in West Michigan, but we’re not talking enormous numbers. Still, I appreciate that there are rules about how people can enter this country and the frustration with those who obviously are not following the rules.

But that sort of nuanced consideration went out the door when I read a quote from my state representative, Dave Agema of Grandville. Agema is sponsoring legislation to tighten immigration controls and put an interesting spin on the issue:

Agema said his proposed legislation doesn’t target Hispanics but all illegal immigrants. It would require state contractors to use an online verification system to prove their employees’ names match their Social Security numbers, thus blocking illegal workers. “We have the largest concentration of Muslims in the state in the Dearborn area,” Agema said. “I know we have (sleeper) cells there. That is what I really want to get at.”

That sort of locked up my gears. I want to believe Agema’s intentions are good, but… What? Really? How did…? I mean, is this…? Wait, what was that again? Eventually all I could come up with was to slightly exaggerate what Agema said. (See first panel.)

I felt like the cartoon needed more than that, and so here’s another thing you should know: Sometimes my thinking isn’t thinking at all — sometimes it’s merely an absurd but amusing (to me, anyway) thought that happens to get loose. Say, like replacing illegal farm workers with athletic children.

Next week: Less self-analysis

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, July 31, 2010

I understand perfectly the benefits of flossing my teeth. It’s simple, straightforward, and the advantages are clear. It really doesn’t take much time and saves money in the long run. I encourage my children to floss and admonish them for being lazy if they don’t. Still. At the end of the day (both literally and in the cliché sense), I have no enthusiasm for flossing. So I make weasely rationalizations with myself and typically don’t follow through on doing it. Hmmm… Maybe this sudden realization that I’m behaving like a Democrat will motivate me to do the right thing and start flossing regularly. (Or I could do the Republican thing, stop all oral care regulation, and let the free market decide whether my teeth rot.) Perhaps it’s time to seek third-party dentistry….